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OSCARS WRAP UP www.postmagazine.com 31 POST MARCH 2016 And the Oscar went to…Sixel, the action newbie — and first- time nominee — who gave Mad Max a great sense of structure and causality from one shot to the next — all 2,700 of them. SOUND EDITING Oscar loves anything aural in the action, war and sci-fi genres, so the nominees — Mad Max: Fury Road (Mark Mangini and David White), The Martian (Oliver Tarney), The Revenant (Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender), Sicario (Alan Robert Murray) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Matthew Wood and David Acord) — were no surprise. And the Oscar went to…the Mad Max: Fury Road team of Mark Mangini and David White, adding to its haul of below- the-line gold. SOUND MIXING Except for Bridge of Spies (Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin) which edged out Sicario, the nominees exactly duplicated the sound editing category in terms of films Oscar honored; Mad Max: Fury Road (Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo), The Martian (Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth), The Revenant (Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montano, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson). And the Oscar went to…the Mad Max team of Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo for their exceptional, highly-detailed work on a film where, says its director, "sound tells the story." VISUAL EFFECTS As usual, there were several surprises here, as mega-success- ful franchises stuffed full of flashy VFX (think Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, Spectre, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2) were all ignored, as was The Walk. But Oscar did reward two franchises; Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould) and Mad Max: Fury Road (Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams). And joining heavyweights The Martian (Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner) and The Revenant (Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer) was another surprise — the inclusion of Ex Machina (Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett). And in perhaps the biggest upset of the night, the Oscar went to…Ex Machina (see "Oscar Picks" in January Post), the A24 indie whose $15 million budget probably equals the craft services bill on high-budget productions like Star Wars, which was the favorite after its dominance at the VES Awards. Mad Max: Fury Road was honored for (L-R) Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Film Editing.